Search form

Volleyball Drops Match to No. 13 Oregon

PULLMAN, Wash. -- The Washington State volleyball team lost in straight sets Wednesday night to the No. 13 Oregon Ducks with game scores 30-24, 34-32, 30-22 before a sparse but vocal Thanksgiving break crowd at Marcia Saneholtz Court in Bohler Gym.

The Cougars (9-22 overall, 0-17 in Pac-10) were led by the combined 27 kills from junior Brittany Johnson and senior Tara West. Additionally, West tallied the match-high of five blocks. Senior setter Maureen Perez had 41 assists and an ace while Jackie Albright and Kelly Hyder each contributed 9 digs with Hyder adding an ace.

The Ducks (20-9 overall, 9-8 in Pac-10) were led by the conference kills and points leader, Serbian junior Gorana Maricic with 24 kills. Sonja Newcombe added 12 kills and Heather Meyers had 10 kills. Katie Swoboda had 16 digs and Neticia Enesi was the team-leader with four blocks. Nevena Djordjevic gave up 33 assists and laid down a pair of aces, and Rachel Morris added another 19 assists. Oregon hit .311 as a team and held WSU to a .186 hitting percentage.

In the second game, WSU came back from a 28-24 deficit to tie the match at 29. Hyder served an ace to put the Cougs at game point but Maricic landed a kill to even the score. Johnson and Maricic traded kills to knot the game at 31-all. West took advantage of an open middle to drop a shot and WSU was again serving for game, ahead 32-31. Maricic was nearly mechanical, landing the final three attacks for the Ducks. Oregon escapes with the 34-32 game win.

'We did a really great job of serve-receiving the ball and siding-out in game two and you could see we were right in that game with a back-and-forth battle,' WSU Head Coach Brian Heffernan said. 'Games one and three we were in situations where our serve-receive wasn't perfect and we had trouble siding-out and we fell behind early in those games and we could just never get ourselves out.'

Washington State wraps up the season against Oregon State (10-19, 3-14) Friday night, Nov. 23, in a 7 p.m. match at Bohler Gym.

'I want our team to come out Friday night and be sharper and to play at their best,' Heffernan said. 'Oregon is a good team but I think we can do a better job on our side. I want our team to come our Friday night and do their absolute best so that we can walk away from that match without any sense of regrets or disappointment that we didn't do our very best.'